Media’s role on the President
The media
Media and the White House
• The press secretary of the White House is
responsible for informing the media about
news from the white house
• The first press secretary was under President
Lincoln
• Congress had to approve this like all executive
branch positions
• The press secretary is typically a member of
the presidents campaign staff that has
experience in this area.
• In last elections the press secretary was the
press secretary of the campaign
• This gives them creditability with the media
and they know the president well
• Creditability is a key to the success of the
position
Press Pool
• The first press pool was under President
Cleveland
• The pool was started by a reporter attempting
to get a job by the Washington post
• He camped out in front of the white house
and created stories of what people said as
they left
• The Washington post gave him a job to report
about the white house and president
• Other news organizations picked up on this
and sent reporters to cover the president and
the white house
• It started out with ten
• It now has 49 assigned positions and five
rotating positions
• The press pool goes with the president on
every trip
• Even vacation
Press and the election
• When a person is considered a true contender
for president they receive a pool of reporters
to follow them
• They have two main jobs
• Report on the campaign
• Report on the candidate
• Both candidates and reporters get close to
each other
• The candidate knows they have to keep
reporters happy in order to win
• Reporters need to keep candidates happy to
have a chance to be part of the white house
press pool
Calling an Election
Calling an election
• In the years past the major news media
outlets would call the election with very low
percentage reporting
• This caused the media to change who won the
election
• Before television news papers would do the
same and they were not always correct
• Since 2000 the media waits until they have at
least 75% reporting before they call a winner
• When candidates or presidents do something
or say something strange the media will pick
up on it
• There are times where the media will like a
president more than another president
• The media will attempt to make Americans
like the candidate or laws that they like
• The media may be influenced by lobbying
groups
• The lobbying group will buy advertising on a
network or newspaper if they report in a
favorable way for the lobbyist group
Where the media falls
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Conservative –
Fox News
700 Club
Christian Monitor
El Paso Times
• Liberal –
• MSNBC
• Washington post
In between
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ABC
CNN
New York Times
Wall street Journal
Scandals
Media and Watergate
• The Watergate investigation was started by
two reporters from the Washington Post
• They were threatened with their lives
• They were told they would loose their jobs if
the story did not pan out
• Their articles lead to the federal investigation
of Watergate and the resignation of Nixon